


The Storm

by athena_crikey



Category: One Piece
Genre: Desert, Drama, M/M, Tenderness, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8803846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Pell and Vivi weather a horrific storm; Chaka weathers the aftermath.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A few months post-Alabasta arc.

The wind was the only warning. It vaulted from the usual cutting pressure of normal flight to snap Vivi’s hair around like a sheaf of whips to flay at her back and neck. She was just tucking her ponytail into her robes when Pell hit a wall of wind, and then there was no time for anything but fighting desperately to stay airborne.

The falcon was forced into a deep downwards slant, Vivi clinging to his back by her fingernails, and was very nearly slammed into the ground. He was only able to compensate at the last moment, twisting in the horizontal currents near the sand, and fought to regain some height. By then the sky was dark with clouds and the wind was no longer whipping but clawing and ripping, picking sand up in funnels and driving it like a thousand tiny needles into all exposed skin. Vivi buried herself against Pell’s back, arms wrapped so tight around his neck as to be flush against his warm skin under the thick ruff of feathers, and held on with an almost strangling grip while the wind did its best to tear the two of them apart. And then came the rain. 

Then the storm began.

The water drove against their skin in white spears, cutting like cords through the black sky. The rain ran in a river over Pell’s back, funnelling into Vivi’s face and mouth until she thought she would drown in the sky. But the wind was pushing them down, each new shear slamming into them like a wall and sending them spiralling. Her grip was slackening, weakening, unable to meet the force of the storm. 

Finally, a front hit them from the right, so hard that they were spun upside down. Vivi was torn from Pell’s back, fingers pulling out a handful of feathers as they were wrenched apart. Screaming, she tumbled two full rotations high above the Alabastan sands, unable to tell up from down while rain and sand ripped into her from all sides, before she slammed into Pell. With no idea whether he had found her or whether the fickle storm had thrown them together again, she latched on as tight as she could while Pell headed determinedly in one direction with powerful beats of his great wings.

They hit the ground before she realised where Pell was aiming, landing in a heap in the damp sand with the princess still clinging tightly to the falcon’s back with eyes firmly shut. It took Pell’s ceasing to move entirely to make her understand that they had landed, the wind still buffeting them from all directions making communication impossible. She dropped from his back onto the shifting sand, and found that while she had considered being in the middle of the storm the worst possible situation, she had been wrong. The ground was unsurvivable. The rain here pounded down with strength at least equal to that in the sky, gaining greater momentum closer to the ground. But here the wind had miles and miles of sand to rake up, tiny pieces of grit filling the air until it was thicker than fog, thicker almost than liquid. Clothes soaked entirely through, she could not breath through them, and fell back choking against Pell, eyes, nose and mouth already full of sand. 

The falcon, a desert animal, was built to handle these storms where humans were not. He hunkered down low in the sand and pulled Vivi close into his lee, spread his wide wings around her to block out as much of the wind as he could. Head and chest pulled back high, he huddled the princess in what security he could make in front of him, great wingspan stretched to its furthest to give her enough space to shelter her entire form. Under the protection of his long flight feathers she curled against the cool sand, shelter smelling of damp feathers and gritty dirt, while the winds screamed and howled about them and dragged Pell back and forward over the shifting ground. Physically exhausted and battered, she eventually fell into a daze, and then darkness.

\----------------------------------------------

It took Pell a long time to rouse himself from his stupor. The winds had died down, the desert around them still. His eyes were caked deep with sand, hundreds of tiny grains scraping against the surface of his eyeballs when he tried to open them: agony. All he could tell was that the sky was clear, a vague blue blur. His ears, nearly equally filled with sand, gave him only a muffled impression of the silence all around. His thin cotton robes had been flayed from him by the storm and were long gone, doubtless lying buried some miles away. The same merciless winds had driven the grains of sand in through his feathers to chafe against his skin, a discomfort greater than an itch but less than a cut; it felt layers of skin had been scraped off with brimstone.

He ducked his head down and nudged Vivi’s shoulder with the curve of his beak. He could, at least, hear her harsh breathing, the sound magnified by his cavernous wings. She needed shelter and water; they both did. Turning himself to face the direction he knew by the falcon’s innate senses to be east, he shifted to place careful talons over Vivi. She would have been more comfortable on his back, but unconscious that was impossible, and shifting form to carry her in his arms was equally so. There was no telling how wounds might change when shifting between forms, and with so much sand lodged in his eyes, ears, nostrils and skin he didn’t dare try. 

With one more pained blink at the horizon he took off, gaining more height than necessary to ensure he didn’t hit the ground. They had been a good ten miles from the camp when the storm hit, and they might have been blown at least another mile further before being grounded. And then the camp had probably been struck when the storm came; it was likely they would have run for the shelter of the nearby sandstone caves. 

Pell flew slowly, eyes closed and beak hanging open with his desiccating thirst, the whole of his skin burning more and more with each mile he crossed. His muscles were torn and joints twisted by the violent winds, and he could feel exhaustion beginning to pour over him, thick as tar to weigh him down. He sank in the sky, started, regained height, and began sinking again – over and over, until he thought he would be better to land and sleep even in the open desert rather than risk the inevitable crash.

He was seriously considering it when he heard the hails. At first they were meaningless cries, but as he focused he made words from them – his name. He risked another blink, raw sand slicing into his eyes like shards of glass, and saw the dark blur of tents below, and the smaller shapes of men. He descended slowly, following the familiar voice. Chaka’s voice, low and rumbling, the anxious voice he used to give orders in a crisis. All that mattered was its familiarity, and he followed it blindly, until Vivi’s weight was pulled forcefully from his talons. 

“We’ve got her, Pell. We have her. You can land, now. Land. Pell, land.” 

Pell only understood one word in three, but it was enough. He stopped beating his wings, aching muscles folding eagerly, and fell from the sky like a stone. He hit the uneven dune with a thump and lay there, stunned on the warm sand, for several seconds until someone slipped their arms beneath his wing and started pulling him to his feet. Pell shuffled his feathers irritably and shifted away, but they were persistent. 

“Up – get up. Come on, you giant goddamn feather duster. Come on, Pell, walk. I can’t carry you like this, dammit.” Chaka, cursing in his ear and elbowing him in the side, forced him to his feet eventually. He was half helped, half pulled over the shifting sands, through several shadows before finally entering a cooler space and being let to slide gratefully to the firm rug-covered floor. 

Pell dozed, slipping in and out of consciousness. Around him voices muttered and then fell silent, and then there was the sound of metal banging from the darkness, and of water being poured. He shifted vaguely but didn’t rise; his throat felt like sandpaper, his skin seemed too small for him, and all he wanted was to sleep.

“Here. Drink. Drink.” His head was lifted and cool water poured slowly into his beak, flowing straight down his parched throat too quick for him to taste it. He stretched out after it when it disappeared, still thirsty, but it didn’t return.

“Come on, you need to get that sand out of you.” A gentle hand pushing aside the feathers on his back, his neck, running over his face. “Gods, it’s practically buried in your skin. Here. Head up.”

He allowed his head to be raised and rested on a soft bundle. Then the sound of water again, and wet hands against his face. 

He lay still as Chaka cleaned out his eyes, ears and nostrils with gentle, patient hands, bringing water to them cupped in his palms or with a cloth and washing away the grit. It stung as it left his eyes, but not nearly as much as it had being in them; he opened them at last and stared up blearily at Chaka.

“Vivi-sama?” His voice was hardly a croak, unrecognizable even to his ears. 

“Terracotta is taking care of her. She’s resting – some bad bruises, and she was scraped up by the sand, but not as badly as you. Can you stand? Come on, it’ll be quicker if you just get in.”

Chaka had provided the small tin tub usually used by the Royal Family for their ablutions. It had four inches of water in it, and some sand already sitting on the bottom. Pell staggered up and over the edge, sitting down again in the water more due to gravity than choice. There was a towel wadded up against one edge and he rested his head against it while Chaka washed the sand out from between his feathers with slow movements, drifting off into a state just on the edge of sleep. He hardly noticed the time passing, and it could have been minutes or hours before Chaka was pulling him out again. 

“There, now. You can change, Pell. Change, Pell, come on.” Chaka’s voice was gentle and coaxing, enveloping him in security and safety. 

With only the vaguest idea of what was wanted from him he shrugged and slipped between forms to a man’s long knocking legs and swinging arms, and promptly tumbled over – would have hit the floor, if Chaka hadn’t caught him. The jackal said something, probably something disparaging from the tone, but he was already slipping away into sleep.

\--------------------------------------------------

He woke lying on a camp bed, a luxury usually afforded only to the Royal Family. Something soft smelling of Chaka – fur, sword polish, sun lying thick in a dusty room – was wedged up beneath his head. From nearby came the sound of soft voices. 

“ – be fine. Sleep cures many ills, Your Highness.”

“I’ve never seen him look so exhausted.”

“That’s because you’ve never seen the spring training missions, Your Highness. He generally nods off about half-way through dinner.”

It was at this point that Pell’s dry throat betrayed him and he coughed, orange eyes snapping open.

Vivi flew forwards to embrace him, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. He was wearing his spare robes, he noticed idly; behind the princess Chaka was watching him with dark eyes. 

“You’re well, Vivi-sama?” he murmured, sitting up. She fell back, smiling broadly. Her face was reddened from the clawing sand, but otherwise she appeared unmarked by their ordeal. 

“Yes – thanks to you. I’ve never seen such a fierce storm.”

Pell nodded. “The weather is returning to its old ways, but it still has Crocodile’s teeth in it. Such storms are usually confined only to the depths of the desert.” He had seen them in the distance on scouting flights, huge dark clouds of sand whipped high into the air. He had always gone out of his way to avoid them. 

“I’ve given orders that we’ll rest here until tomorrow – please take care of yourself,” she said, rising to her feet and pressing his shoulder. 

Pell swung his legs out of the bed, light blanket falling over his knees. “That’s not necessary – I’m able to continue.”

Vivi turned to look at him, her wide eyes awash with compassion, and concern. “Pell, please. We’ll wait until tomorrow.”

He bowed his head, unable to deny her. “As you wish.”

Vivi smiled again, and slipped out of the tent. As she left a bright slice of sunlight briefly lit up the tent, before disappearing as the flap fell shut and leaving behind umber shadows. 

“She worries for you,” said Chaka quietly, from the shadows. His voice was low and rough, like sand washed against stone. 

“I could never give less of myself to this work, this life. She knows that.” He sat bent-backed on the cot, rubbing gently at his wrist; his muscles still ached from the strain of the storm. 

Chaka sat down beside him and they stayed there, shoulder to shoulder in the silence of the tent. 

“Wherever you go, you always come back. That’s what she depends on,” said Chaka at last. And then, after a pause, “She’s not the only one.”

“She’s not the only one I come back for,” answered Pell, releasing his grip on his wrist and leaning to rest his head on Chaka’s broad shoulder. His body felt heavy, his head fuzzy. He closed his eyes, taking in Chaka’s reassuring scent, and let his weight droop to rest on the jackal. “She’s not the only one waiting for me,” he finished, words rough at the edges. 

Chaka rested a hand on his shoulder; its warmth bled down into Pell’s aching muscles, appeasing them. “Sleep then; I’ll wait.”

Sleep welled up and Pell gave into it, allowing himself to be pushed back into the bed. The last thing he was aware of was Chaka pulling the covers over him, tucking them in with a military neatness, but a lover’s care.


End file.
